Traditionally De essers were often used to reduce distortion when recording to lower fi recording media or in radio or TV.

People sometimes use the word "sibilance" to describe distortion triggered by sibilance.

Here's an example of a lecturer who probably has quite a sibilant voice but the bigger problem here is the distortion triggered by his sibilants. It's probably due to an unskilled person in charge of the audio.

Most DAWs come with a de-esser in their armoury. Tell us a bit about where you're wanting to host this de-esser and we may find you already have it!

De-essers are very useful for taming sibilant vocals, but they're not the only (and not always the best) tool for the job. They are very different from EQ in that they only act when they know they are needed, this being achieved by the de-esser analysing the audio as it passes through and turning down the sibilant sections. Some de-essers will split the audio to only act on the sibilance specifically.

And de-essers are also very useful away from vocals. They can be very useful in managing guitar fret squeak, or tom rings for instance. I've used them across an stereo mixes to tame troublesome hot spots.

The current trend seems to be for very bright vocals and mixes, and depending on the vocalist and the recording, it can be pretty hard to get something into that ballpark without using a de-esser or similar tactics (laboriously automating an EQ on all the sibilants is the hardcore way to do it). As Zuke says it's also often a good idea to aggressively de-ess the signal feeding vocal reverb or delay even if you're not doing so on the vocal itself.

Tim Gillett wrote:Here's an example of a lecturer who probably has quite a sibilant voice but the bigger problem here is the distortion triggered by his sibilants. It's probably due to an unskilled person in charge of the audio.

I think others have already given some suggestions there, although most DAWs have a de-esser bundled in anyway.

if a de-esser plugin is necessary for mixing vocals;

Not always, but it is quite a common requirement -- largely because of the close-miking technique routinely used for vocal recording.

if it's possible to remove the sibilance with just an EQ;

Yes, but not in real time. It would require a lot of EQ automation as the amount of EQ required has to vary so that it only attenuates the sibilant parts of the vocal, rather than everything all the time.

...and what's the difference between a de-esser and an EQ.

A de-esser is essentially a frequency-selective compressor. There are several variations on the theme. Some attenuate the whole signal, but only when a strong sibilance is detected. Others only attenuate the sibilant region when a strong sibilance is detected. ...but the end result is similar, either way.

It is worth noting that a lot of sibilance can be prevented or reduced at source by experimenting with the position and angle of the microphone. Moving the microphone sideways), slightly away from the direct mouth axis, or higher (so it's level with the forehead but pointing down at the mouth) can often help, or leaning the microphone back so it's at a slant rather than straight-on to the mouth (which reduces it's sensitivity to the high-end vocal components) .

You can always frequency-split the vocal and control the highs on a separate mult track. There are tricks for getting a zero-loss frequency split, with polarity trickery involved, but I have a template for doing it and have long since forgotten how I created it!

Tim Gillett wrote:Here's an example of a lecturer who probably has quite a sibilant voice but the bigger problem here is the distortion triggered by his sibilants. It's probably due to an unskilled person in charge of the audio.

This is strange, sometime ago I spoke to this speaker on the telephone and I don't remember him having any sibilance at all.

Listening to excerpts of a range of his YT talks/interviews in different venues with different mics etc I suspect he would be regarded by many as having a "sibilant" voice.

But it wasn't my point. The obvious "sibilance distortion" in that edited upload (can you hear the distortion and distinguish it from his consonants as such?) was preventable. I don't think it was caused by the lecturer's voice but (again) by inadequate skills in audio production.

I'd avoid de-essers as a general rule. They can be a handy quick fix, but they're not the precise way to deal with this. There are many factors that make up how 'offensive' any given sibilant sound is...the length, frequency, amplitude, way in which it hits the vocal compression, the attack time of that compression, any distortion, anything else in the track that may be masking etc etc. If I were you I'd deal with them manually...Start by reducing the level on the waveform itself...in other words, before any other processing occurs. Where that doesn't get you the desired result, you can separate the 'ess' and apply some eq as needed. Be aware that when you 'tune in' to this process, there's a tendency to over-do it. Typically, in most modern production styles, you will want a vocal to be a little bit more sibilant that might be considered natural.

Tim Gillett wrote:Here's an example of a lecturer who probably has quite a sibilant voice but the bigger problem here is the distortion triggered by his sibilants. It's probably due to an unskilled person in charge of the audio.

Tim Gillett wrote:Here's an example of a lecturer who probably has quite a sibilant voice but the bigger problem here is the distortion triggered by his sibilants. It's probably due to an unskilled person in charge of the audio.